Cheney Stays in the Picture

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: August 11, 2002

WASHINGTON—
One could hear the exhale of relief from the conservative multitudes -- and the ''Ruffles and Flourishes'' playing in the gladdened hearts of Republican graybeards.

For Cheney, Mighty Cheney was advancing to the bat.

A question mark had been quivering over the White House. There had been a frenzy of speculation and an outpouring of analysis among the capital cognoscenti.

Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution was teetering on the brink of observing that the Bush presidency was ''teetering on the brink.'' Ibid., Norman Ornstein.

So Republicans were thrilled to hear the vice president tell a worshipful crowd of white, wealthy people at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco last week that he would be willing to run with the president in 2004.

He called his White House tenure -- incognito, undisclosed, classified and unavailable -- ''the high point of my professional life.'' The humility in his tone was unmistakable.

Republicans had been worrying about the health factor -- not that Mr. Cheney's was getting worse but that Mr. Bush's was getting better.

The more buff the president grew, the more party solons fretted that he was frittering away time in the gym that could be better used formulating clear policies in a roiling time.

Last week, the president had his best checkup ever, with doctors swooning over his lissome lipoprotein, taut triglycerides, sleek homocysteine, A-plus C-reactive protein levels and thin body fat.

In a city where being a grind is better than being a glamourpuss, suspicion falls on those who are too modish or too toned. Are they spending more hours cross-training than studying the Law of the Sea Treaty?

So it is with the president. He looks too good.

Even Republicans have begun privately admitting what Democrats have been whispering: Mr. Cheney is running the country. He can't get off the ticket because Mr. Bush won't get off the treadmill.

While hobnobbing near Nob Hill, Mr. Cheney waved off inquiries about accounting irregularities at Halliburton during the time he was paid over $45 million as chief executive.

He referred the curious to the Halliburton Web site, where nearly all traces of his existence at the company have been inexplicably scrubbed. In a master stroke that easily threw the press off the scent, Mr. Cheney said that a transcript available at www.halliburton.com would satisfy all remaining questions.

But there is no transcript on the Web site, only a link to a conference-call recording that lets those with audio software listen to barely audible, tinny voices proclaiming that Dick Cheney did nothing wrong.

Republicans are most grateful to Mr. Cheney. With the time he saved by not explaining administration policy to the president and the country, and the time he saved refusing to answer reporters' nitpicking questions about his past business schemes, he has been able to fly around raising more than $12 million for Republican candidates.

On Tuesday, he'll interrupt his monthlong break in Wyoming to preside over the president's Waco economic forum, which is designed to present Mr. Bush as a leader who is engaged with the country's economic fears, rather than one who is on a monthlong vacation from them.

Like a buoyant Dr. Evil holding a napping Bush Mini-Me in a Snugli, Mr. Cheney seems to relish running the world alone. Consider how primary the secondary man is.

Without Mr. Cheney, America would not be planning to invade Iraq. Who else understands why the U.S. is starting a war without provocation for the first time in its history?

Without Mr. Cheney, and his reverence for oil and the House of Saud, wouldn't Foggy Bottom demand that the Saudis, like other allies, nurture democracy and women's rights and stop coddling terrorists?

Without Mr. Cheney, might there be a real economic policy, not just all-tax-cuts-all-the-time?

Without Mr. Cheney, who in the West Wing would have resisted tougher corporate responsibility laws?

Without Mr. Cheney, who would have had the secret contacts in the energy industry to help formulate federal energy policies?